Pretty Poison (24 page)

Peggy put on the coffeepot. “Until I was coerced into it, I would’ve sworn this house wasn’t big enough for both of us. But I think it’s going to work out.”

Mai was asking about the history of the house when Paul came into the kitchen. She stopped speaking midsentence and sat down at the kitchen table.

“Okay.” Paul glared at them both. “Who’s going to tell me what’s going on?”

He was grim-faced through the entire explanation. He shook his head, rolled his eyes, and sat back in his chair, purposely not looking at his mother. “Besides the laws you’ve broken doing this, did it ever occur to you that whatever you find will be useless?”

Peggy stirred sugar into her coffee. “Why is that?”

“Because the district attorney will immediately have the evidence we found as well as anything that extends from its discovery declared not admissible.” Mai looked at Paul. “Does that about cover it?”

“You should’ve thought of that before you took a chance on your career,” he answered. “The best thing to do is get rid of whatever you took out of there. Forget about it. Chances are, no one will call you on it.”

“But if we discover there was alcohol in Mark’s body, that might be enough to reopen the investigation,” Peggy disagreed. “Even if the evidence isn’t admissible in court, it would at least lead the police to someone besides Mr. Cheever.”

“You’re not a lawyer, Mom. And the lieutenant is gonna be pissed when he finds out you were involved with this again. It’s against the law to impede an investigation.”

“But that’s the problem. There
is
no investigation.”

“Let’s say there is alcohol in Warner’s body. What does that prove?” Paul argued. “Alcohol didn’t kill him. A shovel did.”

“Yes, and alcohol doesn’t kill a drunk driver,” Peggy persisted, “the car does. But alcohol is a contributing factor. Someone may have given him a drink without his knowledge to make it easier to kill him.”

“That isn’t police thinking. You aren’t a police officer or a homicide detective.” He put down his coffee mug and got to his feet. “It’s late. I’m exhausted. Promise me you’ll throw this stuff away and not go any further with this.”

Peggy’s eyes were like shards of bright green glass. “I can’t do that, Paul. If there’s a chance I can help Mr. Cheever with this, I will. You could be more useful, since
you
think like a police officer.”

“I’m going home.” He glanced at Mai. “I’d like to talk to you outside for a minute.”

Mai stood up. “Sure. I’m on my way out anyway.”

Peggy waited until her son stepped outside, then faced Mai. “I won’t blame you if you don’t want to go any further with this. I probably had no right to ask you in the first place.”

“Whatever! Like I’m going to let him tell me what to do! He’s a badass rookie cop. I have three years of experience in forensics. I outrank him technically. Don’t worry about it. I have a day off and a friend at the state crime lab in Raleigh. I’ll run this up to him, and we’ll see what happens. It might not be anything.”

“I realize that.” Peggy hugged her. “Thanks for trying. And don’t let that blowhard intimidate you.”

Mai made a strange whooping sound in the back of her throat and assumed a martial arts stance. “I saw this on TV the other night. Impressive, huh?”

Peggy laughed and saw her to the door. She started clearing away the coffee cups when she noticed that Mai left her gloves behind. She hurried to the kitchen door and poked her head out into the frosty night to see if the other woman was gone.

Instead, she found Mai and Paul engaged in a passionate kiss against the brick wall. Mai’s boots were barely touching the frozen ground, and Paul’s face was hidden by her hair. Neither one of them noticed when Peggy opened and closed the door.

“That’s interesting,” she told Shakespeare. “I think we’ll leave them alone. It would be good for both of them to have something besides their work.”

Shakespeare looked like he understood. He waited for Peggy to put the cups in the dishwasher, then followed her into the basement.

Peggy’s first attempt at a night-blooming rose was a dismal failure. The graft wouldn’t take, and the plant died. She noted it and tried again. The water lily was doing very well. It seemed to like her little pond. Her six-foot angel’s trumpet was blooming, six, waxy white hanging flowers perfuming the air.

She put on gloves to gather pollen from the stamen and harvest a few seeds. She was working on a fast-acting antidote to angel’s trumpet poison she hoped would someday find its way to pet store shelves. Thousands of animals were attracted to the plants and died from its toxin.

After watering the plants that were dry and logging in her results from all of her work, she crept slowly up the basement stairs. She’d never considered an elevator for the old house. But necessity might make her think about it. Someday. Not right now. Her knee was feeling better. She wasn’t old enough or dysfunctional enough to need help yet.

She went up to her bedroom with the dog at her heels. He jumped on the bed as she changed clothes. “I don’t think that’s going to work.” She grabbed a couple of large floor pillows she used for decoration and threw them on the carpet next to her bed. “There you go. Down boy. Down Shakespeare. Come on. On the pillows. Get down.”

The big mouth was grinning and slobbering. The tail was thumping the mattress. The more she called him, the more excited he got. Finally, she gave up and promised she was going to buy a book about dog training.

Peggy glanced at her computer. She hated not to log on and collect her messages. One of them might be from Nightflyer. Not that she wanted to answer it. She lost the debate with herself, sat down in the chair, and booted up her computer.

There were 215 messages. Some of them were spam, but she’d installed a good spam blocker a few months ago, so it caught most of them. Only one message asked her if she was ready to refinance her mortgage. Then there were the obligatory ads that either wanted to enlarge her penis or her breasts. She trashed those and went on.

The rest of the raw autopsy data from Hal Samson was waiting for her. She didn’t want to look at it until morning. Unlike the Warner case, there was no suspect in the Columbia poisoning. No one’s life was at stake since the poor girl was already dead. She could relax and go through the details later.

There was one message from Nightflyer. He wanted to meet her for chess at midnight. She glanced at her watch. It was almost two A.M. Surely he wouldn’t wait that long for her.

She logged on at the site and waited for a partner. Since the players were located all over the world, there were always people waiting to play. The chat box showed two of them from New Guinea who were already engaged.

Nightflyer has accepted your game
.

The statement always meant a clearing of the screen and insertion of the chessboard. She tapped her fingers on the desk and bit her lip. She knew she shouldn’t stay. Wasn’t she worried enough yesterday to ask for Al’s help?

She looked at the words in the chat box and answered.
“I should warn you, I reported you to a police friend of mine. It’s illegal to stalk people.”

He put in the symbol for smiling.
“So you’re worried about me stalking you? How ridiculous. I suppose you’re worried I’m the one who threw you off the dock then.”

“If you’re smart, you won’t pursue this.”
She typed with a shaky hand.

Peggy moved her cursor to hit End Game.

She didn’t reply. She watched the screen clear, then shut down her computer. She half expected the phone to ring. Nothing happened. Maybe he’d take the hint. Maybe he didn’t realize how much he was bothering her.

She climbed into bed, pulling the blanket and sheet from the dog. Lying back against her pillow, she stared at the ceiling. The old house groaned and creaked around her. She loved the sounds. They represented the peace and security the house provided her. Sometimes it almost felt alive and caring, nestling her inside its wood timbers and mellowed bricks.

Peggy didn’t want to think about Nightflyer or the pang she felt leaving him there alone. It was too desperate, too pathetic that part of her enjoyed his attentions. The logical, sensible part of her was the one who told Al. It argued with the romantic, emotional side that she didn’t know this man. Anyone who went to such lengths to stay in touch with a stranger had a problem.

Sam’s theory about Nightflyer being too shy to approach her in real life set up the debate again. She was right to consult Al. The idea that Nightflyer was some love-starved recluse might fit in with her teenage readings of
Jane Eyre
or
Wuthering Heights
. But this was the real world. There were wacky people out there. The chances were that Nightflyer was one of them.

She convinced herself and was almost asleep with the dog snoring next to her when the phone rang. The noise jerked her out of bed, trailing the sheet behind her as the pillow fell to the floor. “Hello?”

His voice was raspy and deep. “Good night, Peggy. Sleep well.”

The phone went dead in her hand before she could reply. Wide awake now, she knew there wouldn’t be any sleep for her that night.

Botanical:
Angelica archangelica
Family:
N. O. Umbelliferae
Common Names:
Angel plant, dead nettle, holy herb,
wild celery

SERGEANT ANDY JONES of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD Cyber Unit arrived bright and early the next morning. After tea and toast, Peggy led him upstairs to her bedroom. She bit her lip when she looked at the sheets and pillows all over the floor. “I’m sorry for the mess. My dog sleeps with me.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I got a crazy poodle that’d be a snack for your big boy downstairs. Don’t worry about it. Log on and show me where you go to play chess with this man.”

Peggy showed him, very conscious of her moves, knowing this man was an expert. “What will you do to catch him? Do you have some gizmo that will detect when he challenges me to a game of chess?”

“Bill Gates might have something sophisticated like that,” he answered. “I take down the name of the site and set up a monitor to look for his login. As soon as he gets into the system, we got him. I can trace him back to his source. Every IP keeps information on their clients nowadays. Depending on where he is, we can have someone pay him a visit that day.”

“Thanks, Andy. I feel much better now.” She glanced at her watch. “And I’m sorry, but I’m late for a class. If you’ll excuse me, I have to run!”

“Sure thing. I’ll let you know when we pick up on anything. Nice to meet you. Thanks for the tea. What kind did you say it was?”

“Orange peach with a hint of lemon.” She handed him a slip of paper with the name on it and walked with him to the front door. “Give my best to your wife. Have her try that feverfew for her migraines. It can make a world of difference.”

By the time she walked Shakespeare and got everything together, the taxi she called was waiting in the driveway. She sighed as she glanced at her bike but knew it would be a few more days before she could ride again.

She needed to find time to work on the hydrogen conversion for the Rolls. It wasn’t so difficult as it was time consuming. If she wasn’t so stubborn, she’d hire someone else to do it. But where would the fun be in that?

She was lecturing to both of her classes as well as a group of undergrads at Queens that morning. The auditorium was packed as she limped to the speaker’s platform. Fortunately, she could give the lecture in her sleep if she had to. After last night, that’s exactly what she felt like she was doing. Maybe Nightflyer would log on to the game room looking for her and find Andy waiting instead.

She didn’t think she’d prosecute him. Just knowing who and where he was would make her feel better. He was obviously in Charlotte somewhere to be able to track her movements so closely. Right now, he could be anyone she passed on the street or worked with at the university. She needed a name and a face to have some peace of mind.

At the conclusion of the lecture on collecting and preserving sample pollens, Peggy answered questions from the group. She wondered if Nightflyer was in that sea of faces. Would she know his voice in person? From his previous behavior patterns, she felt sure he’d give himself away to let her know he was there. He definitely wanted her attention.